I’ve been meaning to get to this topic for a while, but with the G.O.P. currently predicted to take control of the U.S. House, if not the Senate, I plan to join the folks over at Campaign for America’s Future and focus a bit of my energies over the next week or so talking about Social Security… and what the Republicans and their wealthy patrons plan to do to it, should they be given the chance.
Of course, it’s one thing to be against something — like the privatization “reforms” nearly every Republican congressional nominee in Washington supports, even if they refuse to clearly say so on the record — but I thought it best to start out by stating some core principles that I would hope all of the Democratic incumbents and challengers in this year’s election would support:
- Social Security has a surplus of $2.6 trillion, which it has loaned to the federal government. Social Security did not cause the federal deficit. Its benefits should not be cut to reduce the deficit.
- Social Security, which has stood the test of time, should not be privatized in whole or in part.
- Social Security is insurance and should not be means-tested. Because workers pay for it, they should receive it regardless of their income or savings.
- Social Security is fully funded for more than 25 years; thereafter it has sufficient funds to meet 75 percent of promised benefits. To reassure Americans that Social Security will be there for them, Congress should act in the coming few years outside the context of deficit reduction to close this funding gap by requiring those who are most able to afford it to pay somewhat more.
- Social Security’s retirement age, already scheduled to increase from 65 to 67, should not be raised further. That would be a benefit cut that places the greatest hardship on older Americans who are in physically demanding jobs, or are otherwise unable to find or keep employment.
- Social Security, whose average benefit is $13,000 in 2010, provides vital protection against the loss of wages as the result of disability, death, or old age. Those benefits should not be reduced, including by changes to the cost of living adjustment or the benefit formula.
- Social Security’s benefits should be increased for those who are most disadvantaged. The benefits, which are very important to virtually all workers and their families, are particularly crucial to those who are disadvantaged.
You can read more about these Seven Principles at StrengthenSocialSecurity.org.
Also at the website you will find a list of the 136 members of Congress who have already signed on to the Grijalva-Conyers-Maffei Letter to President Obama, pledging their strong support for the principles above. FYI, Seattle’s own Rep. Jim McDermott is the only Washington state representative to sign the letter thus far.
I hope to change that.
But mostly I plan to use these posts to expose our state’s Republican congressional slate’s plans to undermine and weaken Social Security in the cynical name of “fixing” it.
[Disclosure: Campaign for America’s Future is paying me a small stipend in exchange for cross-posting at their site. But everybody who knows me knows that I only advocate for candidates, campaigns and issues that I believe in.]
Well done.
Also, raising the retirement age just adds to the unemployment problem by encouraging people to remain in the workforce longer.
If anything, we should lower the retirement age and pay for it by raising the FICA cap.
A vote for a Texas Republican is a vote for the armed overthrow of our elected government.
My poster-child for raising the FICA cap is Alex Rodriguez.
At $25 million in annual salary for 162 games, and with the FICA cap currently at $106,800, ARod stops paying into FICA in the top of the 7th inning on Opening Day. I suggest that the campaign for raising the cap should say something like:
That would be (rounded to the nearest dollar) $154,321. Which would make SSA solvent into the infinite future, with the retirement age reverting to 65 (which it isn’t any more).
George W. Bush said today his greatest failure as president was his inability to privatize Social Security. Which tells you what the Republican mindset is.
Republicans, of course, are cheap labor conservatives. They want to abolish Social Security so the working class has nothing to fall back on when corporations renege on their pension promises. Their aim is to force us all to keep working until we drop dead. By adding the retiree cohort to the labor pool, they can pay lower wages.
Where are our great and bold visionary Congress-critters who routinely call themselves “progressives” on this vital issue? Where are you Jay Inslee and Adam Smith?
One shiny new JD Rockefeller dime to the first wingnut who chimes in with “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme”.
Re 3
A-Rod stops paying FICA after 150,000 annual income, because he can’t collect returns on it past that amount.
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.co.....rk-penalty This website shows why. Above a certain income on which one pays FICA they still collect only a limited amount. Additionally, if a person works during retirement they are penalized. This despite the fact that the paychecks they draw have FICA withholding, and that income earned past retirement has no bearing on what the taxpayer paid prior to it.
Sarge @1
I’ve heard this argument and must admit I find it interesting. How do you account for young immigrants in the workforce in this approach, though.
I understand the idea that paying Social Security at younger ages reduces the workforce. Supply and demand theoretically function on wages at that point, driving wages up in a smaller pool of labor meeting the same labor needs. Higher wages mean that the 15%FICA tax is assessed on a larger income, and the money spent on pensioners will be recouped in taxes. All this is if I understand the theory correctly.
But how do you limit the flow of immigrant workers naturally drawn to a higher wage labor market? If such an influx of legal or undocumented workers were to occur, wouldn’t you be right back where you started, with a large pool of labor competing for a limited pool of jobs?
@6 Don’t be ridiculous. Social Security is not a ponzi scheme – it is the outright felonious theft of property by amoral, lazy, shiftless parasites. Only in the crass, despicable mind of a leftist, un-American traitor like FDR would it make “sense” to forcibly steal $154,321 from a talented, productive member of society for the crime of showing up to work. You on the left truly have no sense of what it means to work and produce wealth so that society can function. If we devolve to the low, base, evil, anti-humanist mindset that you on the left so violently propound, then the human race itself will face extinction, for those who can simply won’t – it will no longer be worth the effort, because the thievery of taxation will remove all motivation to endure the sacrifices necessary to finance the betterment of the race. Not that any of you care one whit about morals or the perpetuation of all that is good and decent.
Oh, how I long for a modern Jefferson Davis to save us from the likes of you people.
Sarge,
The other question is how you address inflation on non-wage items when wages are themselves rising. The local grocery or sporting goods store must pay more for direct labor. Their suppliers must as well. Won’t they have to raise prices? I might get $2 an hour more on my paycheck. But if I’m paying it back out in food, clothing and so on, how is this a real wage raise?
Have any of you KLOWNS watch what is happening in France? Socialist Countries like France & Greece made promises they cannot possibly keep. We did the same thing here.
Let me give you an example of how ridiculous our SS System has become–
A friend of mine start family #2 at age 55.
He turned 62-1/2 and started collecting SS.
Much to his shock…and I mean SHOCK…he received a letter stating his kids age 8 and 4 are also entitled to $754/month until they turn 18.
It’s unbelievable…but true.
There are so many reasons SS is doomed…beyond the fact folks live longer.
It’s going to take courage to make the system somewhat viable. You have to start by eliminating these sideshows that have helped drain the system.
@10…
Just fuck off. What an inane moron.
N in Seattle @3–
So it’s A-Rod’s fault he is successful and therefore he should bail out SS??
You KLOWNS are funny.
There is something systemically wrong with entitlement systems. Especially SS and Medicare which are so huge you can hide the inherent flaws for years….until there are fewer & fewer people paying in.
A-Rod will be playing perhaps 5 more years.
Can he afford it? YES
By why should he?
N in Seattle–why don’t you and the other Leftist Pinheaded KLOWNS pass the Hat or set up a Save SS Tip Jar and give the money to the system?
Of course you won’t because you selfishly want others to pay.
This economy is on the verge of absolute collapse.
Private businesses are not investing…and rightfully so with all the boneheaded regulations and tax burden.
Government grew way too fast in boomtime.
People demanded more & more free shit….and weak-kneed politicians gave it to them even though it was unsustainable.
The Chickens have come home to roost.
That is why I have my place in rural America where my lifestyle is truly sustainable.
You a$$holes will be killing and eating each other…while I dine on fine beef, fish, pork, lamb etc. in our freezers and freeze-dried jerky (elk, beef, deer).
We can weather the storm because Conservatives truly understand the word “sustainable”.
Leftist Pinheaded KLOWNS believe sustainable means government grants and other handouts.
Idiots.
11. Rujax! spews:
Once again Rujax shows the mentality of Goldy’s Northwest Division of Lunatic Moonbats!
You lose Rujax!
Like the Democrats, you have no viable argument…all you can do is spew venom.
I’m laughing my ass off at how pathetic you are.
re 12:
You mean like the 700 billion a year spent on ‘defense’. Any reader of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War knows that the quickest way to ruin a country is with constant levies for raising and supporting armies.
No quarter: Eliminate the income cap. Tax .01 cents per share financial transactions. Lower the SS retirement and medicare eligibility age (60) for anyone who actually works.
Result: SS and Medicare funded essentially forecer (in human terms). Kids (20 somethings) have a chance at employment.
Oh, and just for the good of the order: hunt down every glibertarian and the banksters at the TBTF banks and give them the choice of death by guillotine or bunga-bunga. Do it in public so we can watch them cry like the little whiny ass titty babies they are.*
*(just kidding, honest!)
Re 15
Bunga bunga?
@10
What a cruel world we live in, wanting children not to starve, what monsters they are at the SSA.
By starting Social Security early, your friend is getting below the maximum payment. He should be thankful for the little extra his kids will get.
@12…my place in rural America where my lifestyle is truly sustainable.
Do you mean your Federally subsidized life in rural Montana? What an efffing joke.
@11 That’s one of the more cogent responses that has been made to Mr. Goatfucker in quite a while. It hits the nail on the head.
@10 Klown, even you’d have to like the idea of marrying a 21-year-old at the age of 70 and fathering 5 kids in your 70s who will collect Social Security survivor benefits after you expire in bed while having sex with your young wife. It sure beats hell out of rotting away in a nursing home on Medicaid.
@18 Yeah, on average, each western farm and ranch gets over $2 million in federal subsidies, more than the farm or ranch will produce during its existence. The taxpayers are paying plenty to maintain that rural lifestyle for a privileged few. There’s no bigger hog at the public trough than the western farmer or rancher who goes around telling the world he’s a rugged individualist.
Roger @4 says
He sure as Hell tried, though, didn’t he? Does anybody remember him campaigning in 2004, telling us all that if we reelected him, he’d privatize Social Security? I don’t remember him doing that.
I have an idea: raise the cap to any earned income with the caveat that, the income above $106,800 be taxed only to the recipient of that income (in other words, businesses would pay no more than they do now) and half of the 6.2% tax the income in excess of $106,800 be allocated to an investment account of the income earners choice. The remaining 3.1% of the excess over $106,800 will go into the regular Social Security Fund.
This is a win-win for businesses, high income earners, and everyone else. Businesses won’t have any more Social Security burden inflicted upon them than the currently have, high income earners will have control and ownership of the 3.1% in excess of $106,800, and everyone else benefits from the other 3.1% in excess of $106,800 that goes into the pot for everybody. What’s not to like about it?
As far as making Social Security needs-based, that idea would turn Social Security into a wealth re-distribution program, and I’m against anything like that. What would really “save” Social Security for the long term would for everyone above the age of 55 to suddenly die. That would give at least a decade of continued funding with no outflow (other than the $255 death benefit per recipient) to the trust fund. Ten years of cash-in without any cash-out would make SS pretty healthy.
We can’t possibly raise taxes! Wouldn’t be prudent. Not at this critical juncture!
Actually, number 15 has it right. We need to lower the age for retirement and medicare. The rich can give back some of the money we so generously loaned them, to, ahem, stimulate the economy. It isn’t like they haven’t done fabulously well the last ten years. Time to give back. Time to put money back into the commons, from which these rich people have benefited all these years. The rich have benefited disproportionately in the common wealth of this nation. They did that by gaming the system, as in the massive fraud of the housing bubble.
Raise the cap for sure. I really like the idea of taxing .01 cents per share of financial transactions, which, I think you mean wall street stock buys and transactions like that. This might slow down the traders who are trading millions of shares in what amount to less than a second in time. Goldman Sachs has figured out how to time the market by being milliseconds faster than the other traders because they have faster computers. This is bullshit. They are gaming the system, every bit as much as the grifters in The Sting.
Gist of this rambling post, soak the rich like they have been soaking the lower classes for the last thirty years.
There is no surplus, and it’s frustrating that people don’t understand the only way to save social security from itself is to remove control of its assets from the claws of congress and allow for some system of personal accounts. The CBO says it all:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?ind.....sequence=1
15 is also correct to call for the penalty of death by bunga-bunga. A fitting end for the lo(s)t of them.
goldberg, how ss mean totally funded for 25 years when there is not one cent put aside anywhere? i know what you think the answer is, but its bs. its the same shennanigans the fed reserves use to illegaly print money.
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@lost: The Teachers and accountants and engineers and nurses and truck drivers and printing press operators and plumbers and electricians and real estate agents and insurance agents and hair stylists and receptionists and executive assistants and paralegals and heavy equipment operators and flight attendants and radiologists and sales reps and government workers and….. aren’t going to be replaced by illegal immigrants.
We have nearly 10% official unemployment, but the real number is much higher. A lowering of the retirement age will help bring down the unemployment rate, but not nearly to the point where wages spike.
Ultimately, though, until we bring back some manufacturing jobs, and/or create new ones, the middle class, wages, and consumer economy will continue to erode.
@Lost: One more thing. Rising wages doesn’t necessarily mean inflation. Rising wages can be offset by increases in productivity, which stifles or even reduces employment in some areas, but increases it in others.
As wages rise, employers invest in labor saving technology, like new equipment, computers, and software.
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“We have nearly 10% official unemployment, but the real number is much higher. A lowering of the retirement age will help bring down the unemployment rate, but not nearly to the point where wages spike.”
If so, don’t you lose the benefit of wage increases driven by supply and demand? I could be wrong but I understood the increased costs of more retirees was to be offset by increased taxes paid by higher earning employees in this theory. If unemployment is such (and I agree that the real rate is not anything like 10%) that retirees leaving the labor pool won’t impact wages, how do you pay for increased costs?
“….aren’t going to be replaced by illegal immigrants.”
I agree with you that professional or skilled jobs are unlikely to be filled by undocumented workers. I did mention workers whose immigration status allowed them to work here as well, though. And the downward pressure on wages from undocumented workers in lower skill jobs might still impact the labor pool as a whole.
As for your last paragraph that’s a complicated topic all to itself. I agree with the premise, but don’t have the expertise to suggest solutions.
Where have you been? OBAMA’s going to cut Social Security. He already stacked the ‘cat food commission’ with people who are all anti-SSA.
You are so blinded by Democratic Party propaganda (and money I guess) that you don’t realize how similar the elite consensus is on stuff like this, free trade, war spending and so on and on.
Yawn
Republican chances of taking over the House are now up to 80 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast model; they had been 75 percent two days ago.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/